Patient care in Manaus

Well there we are – another interesting week. Naice’s dad, Pedro, took ill and had to have a hernia op. in Manaus. Having booked himself into a private hospital (the insides of the public hospitals resemble a down-market version of M.A.S.H., blood running down the corridors from the dead and dying who have been scraped off the streets without an insurance policy etc etc). So the private hospital was a must. Of course the logistics of the op. were a bit more complicated than usual, with Dad having to come over the river by boat (how else?) and get delivered to the door by car.

The hospital looked suspiciously clean and efficient (suspicious because there just isn’t much in Manaus that’s clean and efficient – or even clean or efficient). The agreed rate, I believe, was around R$3k for the op (about £850), plus R$800 per night of aftercare. So we got him there for 10:00am on the Thursday, and he was duly operated on at around 16:30 (2.5 hours late). He stayed there overnight, with Naice in attendance (you don’t leave your relatives alone in hospital here – they might accidentally be bagged up and disposed of while your back is turned), and spent most of the night in agony, with an occasional wandering nurse (dragged in by Naice) saying such helpful things as “oh that’s perfectly normal” etc. Anyway, come 7pm the following night (and due another night’s stay), the decision was made to run away. But where to…?

So at 20:30 on the Friday night, Pedro duly appeared, delivered by his son Robbie to our doorstep. He hobbled into our hastily prepared bedroom (no furniture, no facilities, remember?), and spent another painful night at chez nous.

To cut a long story short, after staying with us for four days, he finally was able to go back across the river yesterday, much to his relief I think. For our part, it was a pleasure to look after him and his wife Raimunda (who joined us on the Saturday), and we were sorry (but relieved at the same time) to see them go. He’s still in pain, but we hope he’ll be OK after this week. In the meantime, Raimunda took the time to show me how to make my own chilli sauce from some chillies she found in our garden (chilli plant in photo). Looking forward to trying that.

More Wildlife

There is a beetle here (I may have mentioned him before – big as a football – oh, alright, a tennis ball, anyway) who looks incredibly handsome (as beetles go), but is pretty, well, stupid. Every time I come across him he’s lying on his back with his legs going 19 to the dozen, without any hopes of righting himself. I’ve rescued him at least half a dozen times now, and he usually trundles back to his wee hole (big hole, actually) in the garden wall near the pool, without so much as a ‘thanks mate’. Except for tonight. Tonight I found him with his big face pressed against our door (I nearly stood on him - tripped over him would be more like it). So I left him there and went out. But I was unsettled. I started wondering whether he was in fact just taking the piss. Maybe it was all part of his plan. Maybe he’s a concrete beetle, eyeing up our door posts and quietly plotting how to undermine our foundations (he’s big enough to move them, I’m sure). Anyway I, um, beetled back home (sorry), determined to remove him to a place of safety (i.e. a long way from our foundations)…and the bugger has gone. Now I’m going to bed worried about where he’s gone to. But no doubt I’ll see him again tomorrow, lying in a heap, legs akimbo, pretending that’s exactly how he wanted to be all the time. Or at least I hope so…

Container

The container holding all our worldly possessions is still locked up in the port of Manaus after 5 weeks. We received word today that the officials there (who have done ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for FIVE WEEKS) were now demanding that we dedetizasar (this verb makes more sense if you think of DDT) the container, as ‘all containers from Asia have to be dedetizasado’. Hmm, well Naice got a bit upset about this and suggested the officials who were demanding this go and get an atlas, and said that to the best of her knowledge and belief Europe and Asia were two entirely different continents. She then followed this up, with hardly a pause for breath, by telling them that if there were any damage as a result of this entirely unnecessary process (a process which, of course, WE have to pay for), we would be suing them. I enjoyed this part of the conversation muchly, although we wonder quietly whether we may have unleashed the bribery and corruption beast. Time will tell, but I will always maintain that the conversation was worth its weight in gold. Just wish our container was, too...

Water Levels

The water level on the Amazon has dropped from just over 8m (above some predetermined mark they use down at the docks), to 7.60m, since 23rd June. Things are not looking good for the floating bar. Will keep you updated with latest levels as the news comes in (that’ll be exciting, eh…?).

Gardening

Our gardener, Claudeno, has spent two days putting a wire mesh fence around the top of the garden so we won’t lose any wandering dogs or children down the wilder slopes around the garden (photos). The slopes are planted with various trees including Coconut palm, Mango, Papaya and Banana, but are pretty wild nonetheless. Besides being an attraction for the local monkeys, the bananeiras in particular are excellent hosts for banana spiders and scorpions, and the long grass below for snakes of various types and sizes. I haven’t plucked up the courage myself to make any forays down “the slope” yet, but I suppose I'll have to sooner or later. Anyway, now that the grass is all cut, the place is beginning to look a bit more respectable.

We’re having a party for some friends’ children this weekend, and all now looks organised for this. The ph of the pool is still too low, according to my litmus paper, so I’ll have to buy some more elevador de ph before Saturday. We’ve also managed to tidy up the bathroom a bit, so that the door, the shower and the toilet all work Ok now. This is good. Someone else will have to do the food, though, as I don’t know one end of a barbecue from the other (and it has to be a barbecue, as this is a national requirement, quite possibly written into the Brazilian legislation). The current barbecue contraption is seen centre of last photo. It looks completely cream-crackered to me, but Naice insists it has years of useful life ahead of it!

Telephones and other projects

Progress on the phone front. Naice finally managed to get us two mobile phones on contract (it has only taken 6 weeks…), and at the same time it would appear the local phone company are suddenly interested in installing a telephone line…and in a rash moment we signed up for Sky TV and this may be done within the same timeframe (2 weeks, maybe?) Of course for the latter, we need to supply a 127v electricity socket, for which we need an electrician. This could be a major hurdle – we also need an electrician to install two 220v supplies for air-conditioners, make the existing 220 and 330v pump supplies safe, and provide a distribution box near the wall where we are currently, um, borrowing electricity from the grid. Of course as soon as we have all this sorted out, we will be informing the electricity company of what we have discovered so that we can be on the right side of the law in a while (rather than have them discover, and get fined).

We have someone coming to decorate the house, too, so that we can finally get some furniture and be ready to receive our container if we ever get the thing out of the docks, and if the contents survive the fumigation process (see The Container).

Meanwhile the boat project is nearly completed, and next week Shamrock leaves the boatyard and goes to the local Suzuki guy to have the important bits fitted. We are also considering a few other projects at the moment. One is the installation of an electric gate at the house, which would require us to knock down part of the walls and do some rebuilding. The other is the erection of a chapel de palha, which is essentially a wooden, palm-covered, open-sided structure where one can sit in the shade or swing in one’s hammock etc. We could use this for ourselves and guests, as an area to sip a few bevvies from (or tea, if you prefer), following a dip in the pool etc. And I hope it may be possible to thus utilise some of the slopey bit of the garden by building it out on stilts. I’m also thinking of getting a bike (well, a scooter thing), which one of us can use to potter around the locale while the other has the car. Other than this, we’re getting reasonably organised and settled.

Bote II

Following a further visit, more photos of the boat, which is in the middle of being painted. Hopeful that next week will see the project completed and Shamrock on the water...

Bote

As promised/threatened, some photos of the boat. I had written several paragraphs about it, but have now lost them (twice), and can't face typing it all up again - so you're spared the detail for the moment. More when the project is nearing completion.

Update

As you can see, internet access has become even more spasmodic. This is due mainly to us moving permanently into our new house, which is in an area which is relatively remote in Manaus terms – so we have no mains water or sewerage, no telephone (yet), and our electricity is a “gato” or ‘cat’, which is an interesting euphemism for ‘stolen from the nearest electricity pylon’. Anyway, I’ve borrowed this connection from our friends Zaira and Flavio, who have limited broadband access in the nearby (very posh) Ponta Negra area, so I’ve taken the opportunity to provide here the first pics of the house and attendant wildlife. Speaking of which, everything seems to come in biblical porportions here, which is to say all the animals come two by two – we have 2 Sauim de Coleiras, 2 Iguanas, and 2 toucans. We’ve only seen one sloth, but the other one was probably just too slow to capture on ordinary film… The moth in the pictures measured just over six inches from wingtip to wingtip, and there are lots of other equally monstrous insects, but it’s difficult to get close enough to them to do them justice on film. I’m still working on getting a shot of the beetle that keeps knocking at our wee small door (Walter de la Mare..?).

Since my last post, we have had great fun trying to get a few things organised, predictably with only limited success. And Brazilian beauracracy (help – I can’t spell in English anymore – oh the shame of it…) continues to try to keep pace with continental drift (the continents are pulling away easily). Notably, our goods remain locked up by the local sheriff(s), although we’re moving (well, pointing, at least) in the right direction. In the meantime we’ve managed to get some necessities for the house (vis. one mattress, one fridge, one microwave, two plastic chairs and a TV), and have finally got the pool clean (at least we had until some nocturnal visitor crapped in it last night – strange to say the least!). [Note - to he who offered to come out as pool attendant (you know who you are), I would just like to point out that I have now spent 4 days cleaning the thing out and not only does every bone in my body ache, but the skin that was underneath the skin on my back that was burnt, is now burnt. So where were you…?] I now know how to operate the water pump and the pool pump, and yesterday we invested heavily in a small lawnmower B&Q wouldn’t be seen dead giving away. This is for our gardener, who threatens to come today to cut the grass and tidy the garden up a bit. We also have an electrician lined up to come and sort out some of the last occupant’s ridiculous DIY connections, and after that we may even be able to get an air-conditioner.

Pool

Since we’ve been cleaning the pool, it has struck us as somewhat ironic that as we move around from one spot to the other, rotating round the garden to avoid the sun, presumably there’s more than one of you back there rotating yourselves round the garden to avoid the shade. C’est la vie and all that…

Ozzie

Ozzie isn’t very well at the moment. We still haven’t managed to get him clipped (but hopefully today we will), and he has now been introduced to fleas and carrapato, which I reckon are somewhat similar to sheep ticks. So he’s bitten and hot, and feeling a bit sorry for himself. Hopefully by the weekend we will have improved things a bit. And we daren’t let him run around the garden yet, for fear of him running off into the jungle and getting eaten by something (or eating something, I suppose). This week we hope to fence off the worst of the jungly bits and treat the grass for carrapato, so that should help. I took him into the pool the other day (I thought it might drown the fleas), but he really hated it. Interestingly, his instinct for the doggy paddle kicked in as soon as his back legs were in the water, so even though his front paws were out of the water they were still doing the paddle. Amusing, except for the fact that in the absence of any water, the end result was my chest getting a good clawing (yes I know – serves me right – but he did stop scratching after his bath, so maybe we did kill off a few of the fleas after all). So at the moment Ozzie is moping about the house looking like a disappointed pig, but I’m really hoping that the next time I write he will be fully back on form.

Boat news

The boat is coming on rightly, and I hope to get some photos for the next entry(ies). So far, the boat builder has put nearly all the relevant bits in place except for the cover or capota. The thing now looks more like the Queen Mary than a 6m fishing boat, but hopefully that’s just because it’s out of the water. The next step is to fit the steering kit and the seats, and then paint it (navy blue on the outside and grey inside, with a white capota). The boat will be named Shamrock (after the one we saw in Plymouth) and carry the appropriate symbol too. This neatly avoids the issue of calling it Ozzie and upsetting Naice, or vice versa. After this, and probably next week, the boat will be delivered into the hands of the local Suzuki agent to have the 4-stroke 50hp motor fitted, along with the various instruments and other bits (lights etc). And finally, we have to order the various ancillary bits from someone else (life jackets, a ladder, fire extinguisher etc etc), so that we can take it to be properly registered with port authorities.

Still no progress with the floating bar, I’m afraid. There just aren’t any floats around for the area we’re interested in. This is making it look increasingly like the project could be delayed a full 12 months. Frustrating, but not a disaster – it will happen in due course. All the paraphernalia is carefully stored for appropriate time – thanks to all contributors!

I find myself with a spare 15 minutes of internet use, so here's a quick update. Today we had our first rain since arriving. Very welcome it is too, as the temperature has plummeted to just below 30, which my burnt back is finding most comfortable.

Our car, which went into Renault yesterday for assessment of an oil leak, has failed to emerge and we probably won't get it back until tomorrow now. I guess that's what you get when the French laissez faire and Brazilian amanha attitudes combine.

We're still not in the house permanently, but hope to be tomorrow. Or maybe the next day...

Went to see the boat yesterday to check on progress, and asked them to move the main seat back 10cm. This was due to my re-checking my plans and realising that the 100 litre fuel tank I requested (and on which I will be sitting) is positioned just forward of the theoretical point of equilibrium. Does this make any difference? I asked myself. Well, drawing on all my years of boat building experience, I figured it probably might - so I thought moving it as far back as possible would be generally a Good Thing. Perhaps those of you out there with more knowledge of these things might advise? (Although it's too late now, anyway...) As far back as possible turned out to be 10cm, otherwise it would have compromised my other requirement, which was to leave a space of at least 170cm between this seat/tank and the rearmost seat, so I can get things like huge fish in the boat with ease, and so I can lie down if I want a snooze (and tie a hammock diagonally between the posts supporting the cover). Anyway, next visit is tomorrow, when I'll be able to see all the seats in place and give my authorisation for the next stage (whatever that is).

Ozzie hasn't been clipped since we got here (things still being held by the Gruppenfuhrer at Manaus docks), so he's beginning to look like a big ball of fluff. We are getting him clipped next Tuesday, so we can allow him out of the air-conditioning, poor chap. Must get clipped myself soon, too...

First day in the house

We spent our first full day at the house (except for sleeping there, as we have no bed as yet), and I have started cleaning the swimming pool. I thought this would be a pleasant and generally enjoyable thing to do, but was quite wrong. Apart from anything else, unless you have diving gear on, it´s almost impossible to get any force behind your scrubbing brush when you´re standing at the poolside and the brush is six foot under the water. And then there´s that dashed sun. I can´t get in the pool, ´cause it´s too dirty, and I can´t stand around it when it´s too sunny or Í´ll get burnt to a crisp (I know this, because I am that crisp). Then there are all the chemicals - chlorine for this, sodium for that, something else for the other thing. And the pump, and the filter, and the dead frogs in the water, and the insects, and the leaves. And finally, I thought I could solve the riddle by just draining the pool, giving it a good scrub and filling it back up. The problem is, it holds 60,000 litres of water, and our water tank holds 2,000. The water tank is fed from an artesian well in the garden, and it took an hour and a half to fill it up with the little green water pump we have. So....I empty the pool, we´re immediately into, what, 30 tank-fulls at 1.5 hours = 45 hours of pumping? And anyway, we have a small stream at the bottom of the garden, and the environmentalists among you will think it pretty not-on to pump 60,000 litres of dirty, chlorinated water into it. Jeez - I´m already thinking of filling it in and planting an herbaceous border instead. (Only joking).

On a more exciting note, we had 5 visitors to the garden during our first full day there. Firstly there was a big fat froggy-toady-thing in the pool (and still alive, as no significant chlorine in the pool at this point). So I helped him out and chucked him down the hill towards the stream. No doubt he will return.

Second visitor was a preguica, or sloth. We thought it was a monkey, until we saw him reach out veeerrrryyy sllllooooowwwwlllyy to pick something off a branch.

Shortly after this, we had a pair of collared monkeys come up to steal fruit off one of the trees. They´re Sauím-de-Coleira monkeys, quite small and on the endangered species list.

Third visitors were a pair of toucans, who were playing footsie in and around the garden for a while, making quite a racket (tsk tsk). I´ve seen one in the wild before, but it was much much bigger, so I think these were red-billed toucans.

And finally, we had a big green iguana lolling around in the top of one of the trees.




Quite a toing and froing really, and long may it continue! Other than spending time trying to identify our guests, it was just Naice doing some tidying up and me getting burnt while trying to figure out how to clean the pool. But it was really great to finally get our own space, although we´re still sleeping at Sao Jose as we haven´t much in the way of furniture yet.

I´m hoping to get some photos posted up soon, but until I can get wireless access, it isn´t going to happen. In the meantime, I can tell you that the house is quite small and unassuming, with two bedrooms, a through lounge-dining-kitchen affair and a couple of wee rooms which could be an office and a store room maybe. The main bedroom has its own bathroom and there is a separate, so-called ´social´bathroom for guests (although at present it´s not very social, I must say). This is all on one floor. There is a separate area below the house for the live-in (no, we won´t be having one), comprising a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen/utility area. The grounds slope down towards the house, so that above the house is a swimming pool and covered barbeque area, and at the very top of the garden, near the entrance, is a small kennel block and the water tower. And that´s it, really, except for the view. To the rear and left of the property is a small valley surrounded by rainforest. We have no way of knowing when this will all be chopped down (tomorrow? next month next decade?), but you can be sure it will be. Until such times, we will enjoy it and look after it as best we can. Hopefully it´ll still be there when you come to visit, and who knows - maybe the pool will be clean by then too!

New house

This post is a bit out of sequence I'm afraid, but I'm going to have to go in a moment and have no guarantee of when next I'll get internet access, so here's the latest...

Cutting a long story short, we finally took the plunge and bought a house. It was over our original budget (nothing new there then), and not precisely what we were looking for (ditto), but we both loved it the minute we saw it. After some strategic toing and froing and some reasonably hard bargaining, we got the price down from R$290,000 to R$200,000 with an air-conditioner thrown in(!). I don't have any pics yet, but will endeavour to post some in the coming weeks or months. For those who like google earth, you can get a clear picture of the site (it shows the original house, bottom left, and oubuildings, right) at 3 deg 1 min 36.11 sec South/60 deg 4 min 30.04 sec West. It belonged to a vet, and the outbuildings are actually kennels. A new house was built on the site of the old one, and a swmming pool (yay!) added in 2003. We hope to move in tomorrow, so more on this later.

We've also placed an order for a small 6m powerboat (bote - as per awful pic), which should be ready by the end of the month. We've had no luck so far with the floating bar - there are currently no available boias or floats in the area we want to place the bar (3 deg 49 min 13.13 sec S/60 deg 22 min 17.95 sec W), meaning they would have to come over 100km by river from Manaus. Eek. Still looking, but if we don't find something this month, the water may be too low for us to get the boias across, meaning a delay of almost a full year. Keep you posted.

Manaus - the start of things

Sadly my poor addled brain is apt to forget lots of things (as many will attest), so I'll have to give you the gist of events, and when I can put together a more complete diary I'll add anything of interest at a later date.

After ensconcing ourselves in our billet in Sao Jose (b&w pic) and recovering for a while, we visited old friends Charlie (Italian) and Annick (Belgian) on Sunday and had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. Annick was able to tell us of someone who was selling a car which was almost new. We weren't desperately enthusiastic (in Brazil 'almost new' or semi-novo can mean anything up to 200,000km or 10 years), but said we would have a look. Having arranged to do this, we then proceeded to look at some new (and semi-novo) cars first. Ha ha ha. The price of a half-decent 2-wheel drive people carrier is around GBP30000 - GBP40000. Anyway, we then went to look at the recommended semi-novo, which turned out to be a Renault Scenic with 16000km on the clock. Apart from a few dents and scrapes and a leaking oil sump (cars have it tough here), and apart from being French and a Scenic, it looked pretty good...so we bought it for R$35000 (around GBP8000). First problem resolved.

Meanwhile, back at the house, we were suffering from a distinct lack of air conditioning, and had discovered quickly that walking the dog, apart from being a ludicrous thing for anyone to do in Sao Jose, was fraught with problems. Firstly, the roads are like mini obstacle courses, with drivers of all sorts of vehicles competing at high speed for any available patch of unholed tarmac. There are no road signs, no traffic lights, no zebra crossings (ha ha ha), no road markings. Where there is any pavement, it is usually covered by weed, rubbish, turds, stray dogs and dead people (OK, I exagerate slightly on this last point). To get to one, you have to first traverse the stream of water cascading down from all sorts of dubious outlets protruding from the popular houses lining the road. These usually culminate in open sewers located at strategic points so that you can either drive into them, ride into them or walk into them. The stray dogs, of course, are not used to Irish royalty (I refer to Ozzie, in case you doubt) striding purposefully among them and piddling on their favourite posts or mounds of rubbish. So of course they round on the offender to chase him off. So we quickly discovered that walking the dog needed two people - one to keep Ozzie in check until he's done what he needs to do; and one at the rear with a big stick to fend off the repeated attacks of the locals. All this in 34 degrees of heat is somewhat tiring, and normally results in us (all) collapsing on the bed after the walk. More of a battle than a walk, in fact. So far, we are winning the battles, but the war is clearly theirs...

Phew!

Phew indeed. It has been an interesting (Chinese sense) time since our last post some 3 weeks ago now. Since for the forseeable future my posts may be pictureless (but I'll do my best), I'll keep them short in order not to bore you too much.

You may or may not know, but chaos reigns in the skies of Brazil at present, with hordes (squadrons?) of flights cancelled or delayed, so we were relatively lucky that our flight to Manaus was delayed only 2 hours. Interestingly, since the break-up of the national airline Varig, the most common carrier now is called GOL (Goal, in English). It is difficult to know who they're modelling themselves on (see pic., if I can upload it) - orange livery, pay-per-bag, no seat booking, no food, sour faces, no refunds etc etc. Hmmm.

The good news is they've put their latest modified 737 on the SP - MAO route, cutting the time down to 3.5 hours. Hooray! So we arrived late afternoon, and when we emerged from the airport it was raining - I thought for a moment they'd flown us back to Belfast. But that rain was the last we've seen since then, more's the pity - no more now until October.

We were picked up at the airport by Naice's brother Robbie, and driven the 40km or so back to his house in Sao Jose, which is an area rather hopefully described as being "popular". Makes more sense when you understand that 'popular' in Portuguese can also mean 'poor''. Anyway, that's where we remain to date, although we hope to be moving tomorrow morning. more on this in a mo.

Sao Paulo

Well, here we are languishing in Sao Paulo, waiting for Saturday and our onward flight to Manaus, 2500 miles away by air, or a lifetime away for us (well, half a lifetime).

Ozzie was rescued this morning from the clutches of the dreaded Receita Federal or Federal customs. We arrived at the (helpfully unnamed) central cargo area at 08:30 this morning, and after visiting British Airways once (6th Floor, Room 21), Infraero 4 times (Ground Floor, Room 5), the Federal Vet twice (Ground Floor, Room 6), the official cartorio (or place where you are sent to get forms and copies of documents) 5 times, and the Banco do Brasil once (Ground floor, Room 3), we were finally able to secure the release of our hostage to outrageous bureaucracy at just after 11:00am. A typical exchange went something like

"We're here to pick up our dog, and here are all the papers."
"Do you have a form 1234xyz?"
"A what?"
"A 1234xyz."
"Um, no."
"OK. Go the cartorio and ask for two copies of form 1234xyz and come back."
"We'll also need copies of this...and this...and two copies of this...and this."
After a round trip to the Cartorio....
"OK. Now you need to take this, this this and this to Room x."
In room X...
"We're here to pick up our dog etc.."
"Do you have a form abc123 and def456?"
"No."
"OK. You'll need to go to the Cartorio and blah blah blah."

So, you may ask, why don't the people who need the forms keep copies of the forms, and/or do the photocopying themselves and/or tell you in advance what you need to bring? Well, because half the Brazilian population is employed in taking photocopies and running from room to room throughout the land, that's why. Let's face it, if anybody got the hots for a bit of intelligent efficiency, the entire economy would collapse.

Never mind, he's here now and none the worse for it. He's been out to see what Sao Paulo looks like (big, smelly, hot) and have a pee and a poo; he's drunk half the water in our minibar, had some food and a bath, and he's flat out now on his blanket. Meanwhile Naice has had to go back to the airport to sort out the tickets for Saturday, and we've to get him examined by a vet tomorrow to get his cert. for onward travel.

The hotel is fine - only 15 mins from the airport in the district of Guarulhos, northwest of the main city which can be clearly seen from the hotel, sprawling out like some giant lego set, with helicopters and planes whizzing around everywhere and above which floats a huge pall of brown smog. Lovely. The few of the 29 million inhabitants we've encountered seem happy enough with it, but it's not for us. The only thing that has impressed us is that all the taxis are converted to run on petrol and gas and alcohol (no, not at the same time). The favoured fuel at present is gas.

BTW, our internet access is a bit hit and miss at present, so forgive us if you're awaiting an e-mail response or anything. This is likely to get much worse before it gets better, so please bear with us.

Whistle-stop tour of the South & Southwest

The success of our foray to the Royal Albert Hall (photo) was followed by a second journey to London to deliver Ozzie into the hands of the kennels.

From there we drove down to Plymouth to see my cousin Anton, and enjoyed a very pleasant evening there with a curry followed by a drink in the nearby Irish bar. We took note of the various cultural artefacts on display, that we might replicate these in Brazil (mercifully there weren't too many leprechauns or shamrocks etc), and Naice reckons she has a good idea of how it's all going to look.

Next day Anton took us to see an old (1899) sailing barge (photo), called Shamrock, after which we have decided to name our own somewhat smaller version in brazil. After this we were off again, up the A38 to Bristol, thence to Chepstow, on to Gloucester and Stratford-upon-Avon and back to Scunthorpe. We were suitably impressed by the Clifton Suspension bridge, the Tamar bridge, the Severn Bridge, Chepstow Castle (well worth a visit) and Stratford's half-timbered houses.

Once back in sunny Scunny, and after a good night's sleep, we were treated to a wonderful meal in the company of the now-long-suffering Dawn and Garry, and today Garry managed a great barbeque to round it all off. I'm sure they'll be glad to see the back of us tomorrow, but we'll miss you!

We leave at 12:00 to drive to Heathrow, drop the car off and get to the bag drop off point (we managed to check-in online and get decent seats (for scum-class, anyway). I will as usual be asking for a free upgrade when I get there, but on the basis that the usual response goes something like "ha ha- if only I had a pound for every time someone asks..." etc., I'm not hopeful. I hear about people who know people who do this successfully, but now that I think of it I've never spoken to anyone who has personally succeeded in the endeavour. Perhaps it's a myth.

Anyway, this will be our final post until we get to Brazil, so thanks again to everyone and talk soon.

Sunny Scunny

We caught the HSS ferry on Friday morning, delivered there by Rabea in style. The journey was fine, and Ozzie didn't seem too upset after his trip in the HSS kennel (on the car deck). We hired a Focus Sport 1.6 and the drive to Scunthorpe was uneventful, except that I strongly recommend not buying a petrol Focus Sport 1.6 - what a dog. They must have put the word Sport on the badge just because it shares the same initial letter as Slow or Slug. And far from the 56mpg we got out of the diesel version of the same car on our trip to the Mull of Kintyre, we're lucky to get 32mpg out of the petrol version. What a pile of crap.

We're now enjoying the excellent hospitality of our good friends Dawn and Gary in Sunny Scunny. The weather has been ridiculously good, and we also managed to fit in a trip to see Happy Birthday Elgar at the Royal Albert Hall last Saturday.

Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 (Land of Hope and Glory)
Cello Concerto
Enigma Variations
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 4
Cockaigne Overture
Julian Lloyd-Webber - cello
Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
Christopher Warren-Green - conductor

Apart from the 7.5 hour round trip in the car, the concert was excellent, with Julian Lloyd Weber playing his heart out and the orchestra doing us proud with three choruses of Land of Hope and Glory. The sound of 5000 voices in vague harmony in the RAH really has to be experienced in the flesh.

We have finally exchanged our Sterling for Reais, having watched the exchange rate collapse on us at just the wrong time. C'est la vie. And tomorrow we take young Ozzie down to kennels at Heathrow (boo hoo), where he has to wait for his papers to be processed before his flight next week. From there we drive to Saltash to stay with cousin Anton, and thence to Kidderminster to visit the auction house where our 3 irish watercolours will come under the hammer in June (if we make £300 we'll be lucky). We'll be back in Scunthorpe on Saturday and after a day of rest we'll be driving back down to Heathrow on Monday to fly out in the evening to Sao Paulo.

Our passports languish with the Brazilian Embassy in London, despatched there on 23rd May in order to get a piece of paper confirming that we have been resident in the UK for the previous 12 months (which means we avoid being taxed again on the goods and money we are transferring to Brazil). I have rarely come across an institution so utterly and consistently incompetent as the Brazilian embassy. Nuff said. Hopefully they will send the stuff back tomorrow and we will get it by Saturday. Talk about cutting it fine...?